Atari v Commodore

[atariksi]

I was looking to do something like that.

 

Standard SIO speed though is only about 1K per second on a real disk drive... That equates to 2-bit samples running at 4 KHz.

Of course you can have a nice big buffer but eventually you'll get underrun of data vs sample needs.

 

Higher SIO speeds of course could mean half decent quality but in that case you might run into the wall so far as the CPU demand of processing SIO clashing with the playback requirements.

 

Joystick port is the better option than dealing with SIO for real-time audio/video stuff. Besides the speed of SIO and processing of data, you have the added problem of having to use up timer IRQ for SIO stuff (Audf registers) so can't use it for digitized audio. Also, I noticed some noise when playing back samples while reading SIO data at high rates at the same time.

 

Big RAM drive is better option but it's not a standard component of Atari machines most people have.

[oky2000]

Well I don't think exact comparison is necessary really, just pick a game type and link it to a youtube video on either machine.

 

Let me start it off, here is a technically stunning shootem up for the C64 on youtube called Enforcer II with 3 level overlapped parallax and about 12 levels of non overlapping parallax on the bottom layer all in full 16 colour graphics and massive amounts of soft/hardware sprites on screen and everything is super smooth 50fps frame locked. Technically stunning piece of code I don't think the A8 can do (don't say it can PROVE IT with a youtube video please)

 

Enforcer II C64 Youtube video

 

Also for sound I am going to vote for Wizball's electric guitar riff using NO SAMPLES just pure SID standard waveform which Pokey could never do anything like a real instrument like an electric guitar so realistically etc.

 

C64 Wizball Lemon64 information page

 

When you get to the webpage it will be for the game Wizball so just click on 'Listen online' next to music and a SIDplayer will load and select track 8 and listen to that amazing electric guitar solo that is in the game.

 

Like I say please only respond to these posts with proof to show a link to music we can hear and videos of gameplay we can see to keep it all nice and fair.

[Rybags]

It's just got several horizontal sections that scroll at different speeds... wow not.

 

Atari can individually scroll 240 scanlines if you wanted it to and at less CPU cost.

 

The movement over the background is impressive enough, but again, anything one machine can do with characters is prettywell the same on the other.

[oky2000]

It's just got several horizontal sections that scroll at different speeds... wow not.

 

Atari can individually scroll 240 scanlines if you wanted it to and at less CPU cost.

 

The movement over the background is impressive enough, but again, anything one machine can do with characters is prettywell the same on the other.

 

Please watch ALL the video before commenting @ everyone.

 

The game if you watch it will actually show the 12 or so horizontal layers of non overlapping parallax on the single background level you talk about (which is simple enough sure I agree) but then at 15 seconds onwards it will overlap with a complete second level on top of that covering the entire screen in multicolour graphics scrolling smoother and faster still and with transparent areas so you can clearly it is proper parallax scrolling on top of what the DL interrupt type raster parallax scrolling on the background most layer you mention. The A8 can not do the full overlaid graphics this guy is doing no way. There is no char mode screen to manipulate. Even the Amiga rarely does it and that has hardware dual playfield (with 2x 8 colours)

 

On top of this there is probably about 50 sprites on screen and some of the enemy ships would need ALL the PM graphics of Atari just to do one of the enemy space craft (about half way in) just because of the size of sprites vs PM graphics really.

 

I'm just trying to get back on topic and the question is which is better. So........I am showing you some state of the art coding on the C64 because when you talk about Space Harrier it is being done now and is taking years so no point comparing it to Chris Butler's C64 UK Space Harrier conversion which he did in 2 weeks in 1985 (and 1 day extra to do the raster floor for the Sega USA release) for about £1500 so he didn't really care to make it perfect spending 48 months on it every week.

 

The colours are very washed out in that video so here is another one that has correct colours recorded on an actual TV running on the C64

 

 

I am open to watch any game anyone posts (Space Harrier is one that impresses me so I am not biased and will happily watch anything) I am just trying to open up some friendly competition in the forum not flame or troll anybody elses comments

 

For 3D Outrun style scaling graphics racing into the screen games Chris Butler wrote a game called Turbocharge which is very impressive compared to any kind of Outrun type game on the C64 (he also did Power Drift which is quite nice) as one of his last games and his technical skill is incredible using every trick in the book he could find to pull it off.

 

 

He is not playing it at full speed sadly most of the time.

 

 

Also make sure you watch it around 1:00 because then it is drawing a lot of char blocks for the tunnels like in level two of Sega Outrun.

 

Please only challenge these videos WITH BETTER ATARI A8 Youtube videos to PROVE IT CAN DO IT SAME OR BETTER.

 

I don't want to read any nerdy technical possible explanations and theories I want to see the video or hear the sound chip please so we keep it factual and no trolling or flaming thanks

 

Like I said Space Harrier looks good on 130XE (is it 128k or more? if it is more then Atari didn't make a 256/192/320kb machine so it doesn't count, all my videos are running on stock 1982 Commodore 64 that I can play those games on today or in 1982 if they made them remember so keep it equal)

Edited March 29, 2009 by oky2000

[Rybags]

OK, Enforcer II looks impressive, I'll give it that.

 

Those driving games - utter crap. PMSL @ Powerdrift. Partway through the lap it's as if the road just merges into the sky.

 

But... it's a hard genre to succeed in. 97% or more of 8 bit driving games are utter crap IMO, regardless of system. The odds only narrowly improve for 16-bit systems and even today, driving games are a hit/miss affair with miss being the norm rather than exception.

[Gorf]

i'd say the C64 was the more powerful overall

 

Considering the machine was a whole year after the Atari 8bits.....

 

It had its strengths but the A8's were all around more flexible. Not

necessarily more powerful.

 

but my bias and therefore subjectivity on

 

Clearly.

[TMR]

The movement over the background is impressive enough, but again, anything one machine can do with characters is prettywell the same on the other.

 

Have a closer look, the background layer is at a horizontal resolution of 320 pixels, the foreground at 160 pixels.

[oky2000]

OK, Enforcer II looks impressive, I'll give it that.

 

Those driving games - utter crap. PMSL @ Powerdrift. Partway through the lap it's as if the road just merges into the sky.

 

But... it's a hard genre to succeed in. 97% or more of 8 bit driving games are utter crap IMO, regardless of system. The odds only narrowly improve for 16-bit systems and even today, driving games are a hit/miss affair with miss being the norm rather than exception.

 

Yes I agree apart from Lotus II I don't really think there is good Outrun style racers on 16bits. It was more to show the same man's progression in his technical skill. Space Harrier, Power Drift and Turbocharge are all by the same programmer. Turbocharge does well for what it is plus he isn't really going full speed (don't think the player worked out the high gear/turbo button ) but most were rubbish yes.

 

The movement over the background is impressive enough, but again, anything one machine can do with characters is prettywell the same on the other.

 

Have a closer look, the background layer is at a horizontal resolution of 320 pixels, the foreground at 160 pixels.

 

 

Only the grey metallic/metal bits on the very top and bottom, the R-type style graphics, are 160x200 but the overlaid parallax of the blue diagonal tiles on top of the red raster type parallax background behind is clearly 320x200 rez if you look at the diagonal lines and probably 1 shade of red and blue each (youtube is too compressed to tell how many colours is there).

 

The grey scale section on top of that again may be doubled up to save on memory (remember it all has to fit in a standard C64 with about 55k spare) or they could be multiplexed multicolour sprites @ 160x200.

[Rybags]

What's the deal with that game. Can it be downloaded, or is it still under development?

[TMR]

What's the deal with that game. Can it be downloaded, or is it still under development?

 

It's still under development, but there are previews to download and play here and here.

[Rybags]

The underlaying scroll is character def changes... the YouTube doesn't clearly show the foreground chars have blank areas where the underlayed stuff doesn't show through.

 

Still, looks like a promising game.

[TMR]

The underlaying scroll is character def changes... the YouTube doesn't clearly show the foreground chars have blank areas where the underlayed stuff doesn't show through.

 

Well, y'can't mix the two modes within the same character cell (otherwise a live masking system like Scorpius on the C64 does is viable if a little heavy on resources) so the only way to avoid that is to design everything in the foreground to completely fill character squares; that can be done, but it limits what can and can't be shown t'be honest so graphics bunnies being the artists they are prefer the gaps and greater flexibility. =-)

 

Still, looks like a promising game.

 

Very, yes - needs a bit of rebalancing at the moment for the difficulty, but it's on my watch list along with Xeo3 for the Plus/4.

[atariksi]

i'd say the C64 was the more powerful overall

 

Considering the machine was a whole year after the Atari 8bits.....

 

...

And still more powerful even after being a 2+ years before.

[atariksi]

It's just got several horizontal sections that scroll at different speeds... wow not.

 

Atari can individually scroll 240 scanlines if you wanted it to and at less CPU cost.

 

The movement over the background is impressive enough, but again, anything one machine can do with characters is prettywell the same on the other.

 

Please watch ALL the video before commenting @ everyone.

 

...

On top of this there is probably about 50 sprites on screen and some of the enemy ships would need ALL the PM graphics of Atari just to do one of the enemy space craft (about half way in) just because of the size of sprites vs PM graphics really.

...

 

Your approach doesn't prove one machine superior to another. Some software being better on one platform on another depends on many factors not just underlying hardware. Most Atari software doesn't use GTIA modes so that doesn't mean Atari graphics are only 160*200*4. Most Atari software doesn't use digitized samples so that doesn't mean C64 using it's built-in audio features is better than Atari audio.

 

>>I'm just trying to get back on topic and the question is which is better. So........I am showing you some state of the art coding on the C64 because when you talk about Space Harrier it is being done now and is taking years so no point comparing it to Chris Butler's C64 UK Space Harrier conversion which he did in 2 weeks in 1985 (and 1 day extra to do the raster floor for the Sega USA release) for about £1500 so he didn't really care to make it perfect spending 48 months on it every week.

 

Your just as off topic as most others. And from this post of yours, you haven't read this topic. If you want to state one game is better than another, don't mention the hardware features-- because Atari wins hands down when you compare hardware.

 

>Please only challenge these videos WITH BETTER ATARI A8 Youtube videos to PROVE IT CAN DO IT SAME OR BETTER.

 

You can find software on Atari that's impossible to do on C64 as well. It was already proven here in this topic-- you can download the software with the links given.

 

>I don't want to read any nerdy technical possible explanations and theories I want to see the video or hear the sound chip please so we keep it factual and no trolling or flaming thanks

 

So stop trying to explain the technicalities then and stick with just existing games. There's 256 colors on Atari but if some game is a port that only uses 4 and C64 uses 10 that doesn't mean C64 is better than Atari.

[FastRobPlus]

I'm just trying to get back on topic and the question is which is better.

 

When was that the topic? Sorry, after 100+ pages I must have zoned out...

Last time I checked, the topics were:

OP: Atari and C64 games released at the same time - were the Atari versions ever better?

Later someone changed it to: C64 was more reliable than the Atari. 64C outsold C64 by a wide margin according to my internal facts

Later, someone else changed it to: Okay fine, Atari wins everything else but at least we agree the C64 is prettier than the Atari 800.

Next, it got changed to techno babble about granularity of audio resolution. It sort of went downhill(er) from there...

[TMR]

Y'know... i've been tempted to open a forum dedicated to argui... erm, discussing comparisons like C64 to A8 or Amiga to ST... just imagine the advertising revenue i could get from all those page impressions! =-)

 

(i'm being sort of serious... i think it'd make a cool website, i wonder if my server could take it?)

[Fröhn]

Next, it got changed to techno babble about granularity of audio resolution. It sort of went downhill(er) from there...

That's because you are the definition of "downhill".

[emkay]

I'm just trying to get back on topic and the question is which is better. So........I am showing you some state of the art coding on the C64 because when you talk about Space Harrier it is being done now and is taking years so no point comparing it to Chris Butler's C64 UK Space Harrier conversion which he did in 2 weeks in 1985 (and 1 day extra to do the raster floor for the Sega USA release) for about £1500 so he didn't really care to make it perfect spending 48 months on it every week.

 

The colours are very washed out in that video so here is another one that has correct colours recorded on an actual TV running on the C64

 

 

I am open to watch any game anyone posts (Space Harrier is one that impresses me so I am not biased and will happily watch anything) I am just trying to open up some friendly competition in the forum not flame or troll anybody elses comments

 

For 3D Outrun style scaling graphics racing into the screen games Chris Butler wrote a game called Turbocharge which is very impressive compared to any kind of Outrun type game on the C64 (he also did Power Drift which is quite nice) as one of his last games and his technical skill is incredible using every trick in the book he could find to pull it off.

 

 

He is not playing it at full speed sadly most of the time.

 

 

 

Turbo Charge and Powerdrift are clearly candidates for showing how bad the C64 can handle any "3D". This blocky movement kills all gaming fun, if you're not C64 biased ....

 

Enforcer "looks" good. But it is still another Sidescroller.

[atariksi]

I'm just trying to get back on topic and the question is which is better.

 

When was that the topic? Sorry, after 100+ pages I must have zoned out...

Last time I checked, the topics were:

OP: Atari and C64 games released at the same time - were the Atari versions ever better?

Later someone changed it to: C64 was more reliable than the Atari. 64C outsold C64 by a wide margin according to my internal facts

Later, someone else changed it to: Okay fine, Atari wins everything else but at least we agree the C64 is prettier than the Atari 800.

Next, it got changed to techno babble about granularity of audio resolution. It sort of went downhill(er) from there...

 

Don't know about other topics you mentioned, but the audio resolution stuff is a misconception some have that C64 audio is always superior because they have seen some existing software that indicates that.

[emkay]

Don't know about other topics you mentioned, but the audio resolution stuff is a misconception some have that C64 audio is always superior because they have seen some existing software that indicates that.

 

Approximately POKEY usage is at 40% from my point of view. Seeing RMT as the most comfortable Tracker, it misses also ~80% of full Tracker/Midi features. I guess everyone would kick a Tracker to the moon even on the AMIGA or PC, if it needs to create 64 instruments for one pattern, to have all necessary variations for a melody... not to mention about the "blocked" features...

 

And I wonder, how a game on the A8 would look like, when using GTIA modes in the background and multiplexed PM with GPRIOR 0 was used....

At least the Atari could show more than 100 colours per scanline then.... just an imagination...

[FastRobPlus]

Next, it got changed to techno babble about granularity of audio resolution. It sort of went downhill(er) from there...

That's because you are the definition of "downhill".

 

Hey, if it isn't Mr. Internally Generated Facts himself.

Why didn't I think you'd still be haunting this thread...

 

Well Fröhn, you did convince me of one thing. After reading the first few hundred posts it really got me thinking how none of the C64 games were really satisfying compared to the Atari games. I decided to sell off my entire C64 collection and focus only on two main systems: the Atari 8-bit and it's offspring the Amiga.

 

Actually, almost everything C64 related from my trade list is gone now. I am selling the very last of the rare C64 games right now but I'm not sure they will sell at the listed price. Demand for C64 games has been much lower than for Apple II and Atari 8-bit in the last few months. Not sure why.

[potatohead]

I think one factor is Apple ][ and Atari 8 bit have good communities that drive interest.

 

And that's not saying the C64 scene is bad. I'm sure it isn't. Anywhere we've got people doing stuff on the old machines, it's all good. I've plenty of C= oriented friends, and they are all cool. So, let's not go there.

[Godzilla]

I don't care about instances where a c64 game is better. that is not what this topic is about at all. it's about those places where the atari 800 version was better. The c64 got a LOT more dev time during it's life, so forgive me if I'm not surprised at a game (that isn't even a direct comparison to anything on the a8,) might be better. That's what I like about this topic (when it gets it right,) it lets the underdog win.

[oky2000]

I'm just trying to get back on topic and the question is which is better.

 

When was that the topic? Sorry, after 100+ pages I must have zoned out...

Last time I checked, the topics were:

OP: Atari and C64 games released at the same time - were the Atari versions ever better?

Later someone changed it to: C64 was more reliable than the Atari. 64C outsold C64 by a wide margin according to my internal facts

Later, someone else changed it to: Okay fine, Atari wins everything else but at least we agree the C64 is prettier than the Atari 800.

Next, it got changed to techno babble about granularity of audio resolution. It sort of went downhill(er) from there...

 

 

Right well if people want to compare the piles of rubbish games coded in 1983 using 25-50% of the machines (both cases) capability then fair enough. I am showing code that is pushing the C64 much more than examples given, in response to A8 coding/games that are taking years 3 decades after launch. Fair's fair and compare like for like unless you don't want a fair comparison

 

We were getting people comparing Space Harrier on C64 (and the UK version as well which is even more shit than the US version update for NTSC) with A8 Space Harrier written 20 years later and still going on after 4 years of coding. Chris Butler wrote Space Harrier for the C64 in two weeks for a client that was it.

 

So I am just evening the scores with games like A8 Bomb Jack and Space Harrier being mentioned by showing you what is being done NOW on the C64 this decade by people taking their time and using 95% of the machine to showcase it's abilities not 3 before

 

Of course it IS an Atari forum so it doesn't really matter, but me personally I own every 8bit console or computer ever sold in PAL format and I have no bias at all. And how much commercial coding happened on either machine doesn't matter anyway it's the demo coders and homebrew games people pushing BOTH machines to their limit today that is important. IF Space Harrier was launched in 1985 for A8 it would have been as shit as any other game because it was about money not love for the machine, getting paid for doing the bare minimum to fulfill the contract and buy food and gas!

 

So do you want to talk about which machine is best by posting cutting edge coding on BOTH machines or shall I just leave this as a lost cause on a machine specific forum?

 

Like I said I am happy to look at any examples with an open mind, I want to see what both machines can do, that is the joy of retro computing for me

[FastRobPlus]

Right well if people want to compare the piles of rubbish games coded in 1983 using 25-50% of the machines (both cases) capability then fair enough.

 

That was the point of the thread. Pretty dumb maybe, but it was laugh out loud entertaining when the topic turned to quality of interior RF shielding!

 

 

So do you want to talk about which machine is best by posting cutting edge coding on BOTH machines or shall I just leave this as a lost cause on a machine specific forum?

 

Your lost cause idea sounds pretty good.